Saturday, March 10, 2012

"You must have just gotten your eyebrows waxed."

"Come again?"

"Your eyebrows. They're all red."

A self-conscious hand flies to my forehead. Am I really being called out by a Subway sandwich artist? Can't a girl grab a footlong on wheat, mussy-haired and makeup-free? I'd just plucked them. But heck if I wanted to discuss it. I reach for my debit card, but Señor Sandwich isn't letting go.

"So where'd you get them waxed?"

"Excuse me?"

"Somewhere around here?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure. That little nail place down the road."

A total lie. (Fibbing about tweezing. And all I wanted was lunch. And why is a dude asking about waxing?) My flustered ambiguity doesn't slow him down.

"How much did it cost?"

"Uh, twenty bucks?"

Pulling it out of my arse at this point... I'm pretty sure the line of six people behind me wants this conversation to end as badly as I do.

"Ah, pretty cheap. They did a decent job."

I yank my sandwich from the counter.

"Come back and see us."

How about never?

Never ever again.

A cupcake to ease the awkwardness. (Or to shove in the mouth of a bumbling idiot).